


A Quiet Place, Full of Light

by telekinetic_hedgehog



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Psychosis, Solitary Confinement, Suicidal Thoughts, Unethical Experimentation, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12705582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinetic_hedgehog/pseuds/telekinetic_hedgehog
Summary: Bruce Banner is kidnapped and doesn't know who's behind it or why. It's not good for him.Written for the whump community secret satan 2017, for aravenwood, whose prompts included bruises, kidnapping, and electric shock.Mind the tags.





	A Quiet Place, Full of Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aravenwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/gifts).



> Thanks to TheHatMeister for beta-reading, and to the Star Wars Writing Alliance for their encouragement.

Bruce is just starting to feel safe again. 

He’s moved yet again, starting over in a new country, in a new town, with a new name. He hopes it’ll be a while before anyone finds out his secret-- something even more difficult after the mess the Other Guy made in Wakanda, but hopefully even if the people here know about that, they won't connect it to Bruce. It's quiet here, and people are the sort of folks to be wary of strangers, but they're loyal and generous once you get to know them. Working with the local doctor, not in competition, seems to be the path to earning their trust, and it feels good to be helping people. Plus it gives him something to do, gets him out of his head a little. 

He's tired on his way home, not the lonely exhaustion familiar to him, but the satisfying pride of using his energy on something meaningful. After coming home and taking his shoes off, though, the tiredness deepens into a groggy, dazed feeling. He tries to shake himself out of it, but he finds himself clutching the back of the sofa just to stand up straight. His vision blurs, and his limbs feel weighted down. Dizzy, he crumples into the sofa and closes his eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass. 

_ I hope I'm not coming down with something, _ he thinks just before losing consciousness.

 

He wakes up slowly, becoming more aware of his surroundings before the reality of his situation can sink in. The lights above him are bright white, too much to look at. He closes his eyes. His head aches, and his body feels weak and too heavy to move. He’s lying on his back, with a hard, flat surface beneath him. He stays there for some time, not yet totally conscious. When he opens his eyes, the lights are still painfully bright. 

To his side is a mirror curving inward, and he can see his naked reflection distorted in it. 

He's naked.

Exposed.

_ Shit. The Other Guy, _ Bruce thinks with a start.  _ What did he do this time?  _

Bruce tries to remember, but all that comes to mind is feeling light-headed in his house. He can't recall feeling angry, or having any strong feeling at all. He rubs his forehead, trying to work away some of the tension and think. He looks around, hoping to make sense of where he is. The curved mirror reaches all around him, enclosing him in a cylindrical room. He doesn't see a door. Groaning, he pushes through the heavy, hazy feeling and forces himself to sit up. He stands, shakily, and staggers to the wall, putting his hand against it for balance. It doesn't feel like glass. His mind flashes back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier and the transparent cage that was made for him but ended up housing Loki. That's what this is, isn't it? Some sort of cage? 

He taps the not-quite-glass with the back of his fingers. It sounds thick. Whoever put him here knows who he is, knows about the Other Guy. The surface is like one-way glass-- that's why it's a mirror. Someone put him in here on purpose, and maybe they're watching him right now. 

“Hello?” he calls. The room has a slight echo to it, but otherwise silence. “Hello? Where am I?” 

He tries a few languages, just in case. No answer. 

He slides to the floor and pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs and putting his forehead down on his knees. Not that it affords him much modesty. 

_ Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, _ he tells himself, but he's tempted to just let himself panic and let the Other Guy do… well, nothing, probably, since it looks like the cage was designed to keep him inside. The thought that he's free to panic in here is-- ironically enough-- calming. He takes a deep breath. Okay. So he was kidnapped. And there's probably not a way out, even with the Other Guy helping him. And his captors can't-- or won't-- talk to him. He can handle this. 

He sits at the center of the cell, closes his eyes, and crosses his legs. He feels his breath, slow inhale and slow exhale, and slips into a meditation. It's calming, and it's just what he needs. Thoughts come up, but he lets them fly away, returning to the rhythm of his breath. He doesn't know how much time passes in this state. It feels like it's been quite a while, once he realizes he's too hungry to focus anymore. 

When he opens his eyes, there's a tray on the floor. He doesn't know how it got there without him hearing someone bring it in. There's a turkey sandwich, a sad looking side salad with a packet of blue cheese dressing, a pint-sized carton of milk, and a bag of chips. He's suspicious, but not suspicious enough to start a hunger strike, so he eats. The sandwich has lots of pickles, and he wonders whether it's a coincidence or if his captors know he likes pickles and that blue cheese dressing is his favorite. It's unsettling, thinking that they know him down to his food preferences without him even knowing who they are. He looks around, on instinct, but all he can see is the inside of the mirror. How long were they watching him? And what else do they know?

He doesn't feel like meditating more after dinner, so he walks in circles around the edge of the room. There are no landmarks in the bare room, and no way to count how many circles he's made. At least it's doing his body some good, and the exercise makes him feel less trapped. 

There's no way to tell time in the cell, but he's getting tired, so it must be late. There's no bed, probably because they don't trust the Other Guy not to destroy it, so he curls up on the floor with one arm as a pillow and the other covering his eyes. It's not the most comfortable he's been, that's for sure. The floor is too hard, and his feet are cold without a blanket. He's never been one to sleep naked. And above all, the lights are too bright. But he’s too exhausted not to at least try to sleep. 

He settles in, tries to get-- well, not comfortable, exactly, but less uncomfortable. A few minutes go by, and he's still awake. He rolls over and tries some breathing exercises. No use. No matter how many ways he tries to fall asleep, the floor is still hard and the lights stay bright. It feels like it's been hours. Has it been hours? It’s got to be noon the next day by now. Eventually he gets up and walks in circles again. He closes his dry eyes and loses track of how many circles he's walked. Just step, step, step…

He trips over something. It's a plastic tray with a clear cover on top, and it seems like it appeared out of nowhere. Under the cover is a plate of breakfast food: three slices of hot toast spread with butter and jelly, a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a bowl of yogurt with berries. There's even two cartons of orange juice. Well, at least his captors don't seem to be interested in starving him. The dishes and spoon are plastic and styrofoam; everything is disposable. He eats, and it's not until after the second piece of toast that he realizes how hungry he was. Normally he takes medication with breakfast, and they don't seem to have known about that. He takes a couple of antidepressants to keep the suicidal thoughts away and keep his mood stable. He doesn't know how long it takes without them before symptoms start coming back, but going cold turkey on psych meds can't be a good idea.  _ Shit.  _

He's trying to decide whether to meditate or try sleeping when he hears a soft hiss. He looks around, but he doesn't see where it's coming from. A drowsy feeling comes over him, and he has to lie down. It feels just like what happened yesterday, and he tries to fight it, tries to stay awake. It's almost dragged him under when something shoots out from the ceiling, stabbing him. Two wires, sunk deep into him with metal barbs, create an agonizing circuit. He screams in spite of the sedative, but he can't move his body the way he wants to. He feels the voltage increase, hears his scream transform into a roar, and sees his hand, green and huge, rip out the wires before the Other Guy surges up to take over and Bruce is gone. 

 

Bruce wakes up to bright white light. Same cell, new headache. He's weak and thirsty. Still naked. For a while he doesn't move. Must be part of the sedative. Why? 

What's going on? Why would they sedate him and then shock him? Were they  _ trying _ to bring out the Other Guy? 

The only explanation Bruce can think of that makes any sense is that it's a test. Someone doesn't want the Other Guy to get loose, and they're experimenting with a drug that will suppress him. It's a waste of time; Bruce could have told them that. He's seen the biochemical research-- hell, he's tested stuff on himself-- and there's no theoretical or practical basis for thinking a sedative could stop the Other Guy. It's just something he's had to learn to live with, and he was doing fine with that before they took him. 

Eventually, he sits up. On one side of the room is a bucket with a hole cut in the lid, presumably a makeshift toilet. On the other side is a food tray. Lunch-- at least, he assumes it's lunch and not dinner, but he could be wrong-- is a wrap with ham, salami, lettuce, and spicy mustard, a bowl of pasta salad, a cup of applesauce, an oatmeal raisin cookie, a carton of milk, and two prepackaged nutritional shakes for weight gain. So they do know about the Other Guy needing more calories. Bruce savors everything, desperate for the stimulation that taste provides in such an otherwise boring room. 

His headache fades as the sedative wears off. He's antsy and surprisingly lonely. He's isolated himself for longer, but maybe there's something different about being in what amounts to solitary confinement. So he closes his eyes and sings to himself: the pop songs that his cousin would play as she drove him around with her new driver’s license, the classic rock that Tony always blares in his laboratory/mansion/garage, a love song that Betty once said reminded her of him, a folk song that the children of his new neighbors taught him. Usually he's self-conscious about his voice, but there's no point being shy when his captors have already seen him naked, and if they don't want to listen to him, then they shouldn't have kidnapped him in the first place. The music echoes off the curve of the cell wall and makes his voice stronger and richer, and as he remembers the people who've loved him, he feels a little less alone. 

Dinner is there when he opens his eyes. He takes small bites of lasagna and buttery green peas, and eats his cake slowly, paying close attention to the tastes and smells and colors of his food. He's so tired from not sleeping the night before that he tries to fall asleep right after dinner. He's been here over 24 hours, with no respite from the glaring light. No matter how he turns, it's still there, still keeping him awake. The longer he's lying on the floor, the more sore and achy his body feels. And his feet are still cold. As the hours pass, he grows more and more desperate for sleep. 

“If you can hear me,” he says to the empty room, “please turn down the lights.” 

The lights stay just as bright. The cell is as quiet as ever. 

“Please!” he begs. “I need to sleep. Please, just this one thing.”

Nothing changes. He groans in frustration, and the Other Guy is there, just beneath the surface. He doesn't want to let the Other Guy out right now, he wants to  _ sleep _ , dammit, so he relaxes the tension in his muscles and takes a deep breath and cries silently to himself through burning eyes. 

He wakes some time later, not exactly well rested, but relieved at getting a little shut-eye, even if it took crying himself to sleep. The mirror shows bruises on his body from sleeping on the floor.  _ Am I really that old? _ he wonders. He walks in circles ‘til breakfast comes, a cheese danish and a blueberry muffin, bacon, a few apple slices, and a styrofoam cup of oversteeped black tea that's not quite up to his standards but still hot and comforting. 

He's brushing muffin crumbs off of his chest hair when the hissing starts. 

“No.” He looks around the walls at his invisible captors. “Don't do this to me. Please, no.”

The hissing continues, and he stands and bangs his fists on the walls of the cage. 

“Stop! I don't want this. Do you hear me? I don't want this!” 

The lightheadedness and weakness hits him, and he falls to the floor. 

_ Stay awake, stay awake… _

Two metal barbs shoot from the ceiling, and the Other Guy swats them away, roaring with monstrous fury. 

 

He's still in the cage, he realizes with disappointment. It'll be a while before he can move. The test failed again, if that's what it was. 

“This isn't science,” he says aloud, voice shaking, not sure if anyone is even listening. “Is this supposed to be an experiment? You should know that introducing other variables makes your results invalid. Sleep deprivation and solitary confinement are torture, and they're variables you aren't controlling for. You're violating at least half of the points of the Nuremberg Code and several articles of the Declaration of Helsinki. If you call yourselves scientists, you should know better.”  

There's no response, but he's not expecting one. 

_ I should get up, _ part of him says.  _ What's the use, _ says another part.  _ I want to die. _

He sighs.  _ There's that thought again. _ He knows he doesn't really want to die, he's just exhausted and isolated and off his antidepressants. But it bothers him all the same. Eventually he does get up, and he eats the lunch they left for him, just boring deli stuff that he can't really taste in this mood and the nutrition shakes. His bruises healed when he came back to himself, so he curls up on the floor and does nothing. 

The hallucinations start off slowly. There's a buzzing noise that sometimes gets louder or quieter. He swats at a fly near his face, and it disappears. He closes his eyes in hopes that he can fall asleep, or at least avoid seeing things that aren't there.  Sleep still won't come, even with his eyes closed. He silently recites the periodic table of elements, old addresses, Latin noun declensions, anything to keep himself from going crazy. At some point, dinner shows up, and he doesn't feel like eating. But he manages to eat most of the mashed potatoes and corn and a few forkfuls of whatever meat this is. Another bug that isn't really there flies around him. He walks some more circles before sitting with his back against the wall and his head on his knees. No use getting bruised up again. 

That night is the longest he's had. Several times he wonders if they simply forgot to give him breakfast, because it can't  _ possibly _ still be night. The suicidal thoughts come and go. He knows they're just a symptom of his situation, and besides, it's not like he has anything to carry it out with even if he wanted to. He's come to terms with the fact that it'll never be an option as long as the Other Guy is part of him. In general, those thoughts are just a sign he needs sleep, food, company, or his meds, and here he  _ knows _ he does. 

At one point, he sees a black cat walk across the room. The noise sounds less like a buzz and more like a vacuum cleaner in the distance. He hugs his knees and rocks back and forth. Several times, he tries lying down. He still can't sleep. He stands up, avoids meeting his reflection's sunken, bloodshot eyes, and paces like a caged animal. 

He  _ is _ a caged animal. 

No, he's a person, not an animal, not a monster, he's tried so hard to make himself believe this. 

The night stretches on. Finally, while his head is down, they bring the breakfast tray. Bruce spreads butter and jelly on his biscuits and eats robotically. 

The hissing starts, and he lies down and braces himself for the jolt of electricity. He's too numb for the Other Guy to come out before he's zapped. The wooziness is familiar now, and he lets himself fade into it. The excruciating shock makes him scream and takes his body out from under his control, and Bruce is all too eager for the Other Guy to take over. 

 

When Bruce wakes up, he's sitting on his couch, in his own living room, in the same spot he was in when he was taken. He's wearing clothes, and it looks like late afternoon outside. The whole ordeal seems unreal, like a dream he had while napping on his couch. 

He should be feeling relieved, shouldn't he? He's numb. He needs something to bring him back to reality. With shaking hands, he picks up the phone and calls a number from memory. Only a few people know this number or who it belongs to. 

Tony answers after the second ring. 

“Who's this?”

Damn, how long has it been since he heard a voice besides his own? 

“Hi, Tony. It's Bruce.” 

“Hey! How are you?” 

Where to begin? Awkwardly he blurts out, “I was kidnapped.”

“Okay, stay calm. Are you hurt? Do you know where you are?” 

“They let me go. I'm back at my house. I don't know who took me or why.”

“Are you safe?”

Bruce has to think about that. Does he feel safe? Fortunately, Tony takes his hesitation as an answer. 

“I'm on my way. Tell Friday your address, and I'll be there as fast as I can.” 

Bruce stutters through the address he only just memorized a couple months ago. 

“All right. Let me just grab a few things, and I'll be there in two hours. Anything else?” 

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Don't mention it. Okay, two hours. Hold on.” 

“I will.” 

They disconnect, and Bruce sets the phone down. Nothing around him seems real, nothing that happened seems real,  _ he _ doesn't seem real… 

No. He can deal with this. This isn't his first time dealing with mental health issues. He heaves himself off the couch and walks, stiffly and mechanically, into his bedroom, where he pulls his softest flannel pajamas out of his dresser. For a few moments, he runs his fingers over the fabric, just feeling its softness and trying to bring himself back from wherever his mind gets lost. He starts a shower and lets the water heat up before stepping in. The warm water soothes and cleans his body, and he imagines it doing the same to his mind. When he finishes, he towels off and puts on his comfortable pajamas. It's nice to be wearing clothes again. 

He goes back downstairs and looks at his pantry. Nothing seems appetizing. He sits at the kitchen table and zones out until a knock at his front door breaks the spell. 

He opens the door to see Tony's Iron Man suit, holding a designer suitcase and looking very out of place on Bruce's front step. 

“Thanks for coming,” Bruce says. “Come on inside.” 

Tony steps out of the suit and rolls his suitcase into the house. 

“Thanks. Friday scanned the neighborhood, and she doesn't think you're in physical danger from anyone here, but she'll keep an eye out. Or a scanner, as it were. Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Bruce pauses. “Not yet.” 

Tony nods. “Have you eaten today?” 

“Not since breakfast.” 

“Let's make something, then.” 

They go into the kitchen, and Tony fills the kettle with water and turns the stove on under it. The milk that Bruce bought earlier that week is still good, and they end up eating cereal for dinner. Tony pops up to get the kettle when it whistles, and Bruce is touched that he remembers how he likes his tea. Tony is more of a coffee drinker, but he'll drink tea, too, so they sit at the kitchen table with their steaming cups and cold bowls. Part of Bruce wants to tell him how grateful he is to have another person around, to have someone interact with him and treat him like a person, but he doesn't want to come on too strong or look clingy. 

He asks about Pepper and about Tony's philanthropy projects, and Tony is happy to fill the space with talk that feels normal and down to earth. He goes on a tangent about clean energy and getting the coal industry on board instead of competing with it. It's exactly what Bruce needs. 

The sun sets, and the house is dark except for the dim, homey lamp over the kitchen table. He never knew darkness could be so comforting. With the friendly conversation and his hands cupped around the tea mug, he's starting to feel like a real person again. He lets a sleepy yawn slip out. 

Tony stops. “Are you ready to hit the hay?” 

“I don't know.” He hesitates and looks away, quietly adding, “They didn't really let me sleep. Bright lights, no bedding. I'm exhausted, but I feel like I might never sleep again.” 

“Hmm.” Tony nods, understanding. “Well, we've got darkness and bedding here. And Friday and I are looking out for you. Would it help to have another person nearby? Or would space feel better?” 

Bruce looks up to meet Tony's eyes. “Would you mind…?” 

“Not one bit.” 

They brush their teeth, and Tony changes into expensive-looking silk pajamas with his initials embroidered in white calligraphy on the front pocket. Bruce turns off the light, climbs onto his bed, and burrows under the covers.  _ Wow, this feels good. _ He yawns again, deeper and longer. Tony climbs into bed next to him. 

“I remember when I first came back from Afghanistan,” Tony says softly, into the darkness. “How it was hard to sleep. How much I needed to be around people, but had a hard time trusting anyone. I spent a lot of time alone, or with just the AIs for company. Threw myself into projects for distraction. But people can help. Talking helps. When you're ready, I mean.” 

“I will,” Bruce promises, and he means it. He knows that recovery is tough work, and that it takes time and isn't a linear process. But he also knows that it's possible, and that it's worth it. That  _ he's _ worth it. “Thanks for being here.”

“Of course. You matter to me.” 

“You matter to me, too.” 

The room is dark, the bed is soft, and Bruce is warm under the covers with Tony. He feels safe again as he drifts into a deep and restful sleep. 


End file.
